Good Day all,
As usual I am faced with trying to do a report with my limited writing skills.

This year after the usual battle with our local wildlife authority I managed to get a resident hunting license for this area.Unfortunately the area I was allocated belongs to an operator that is personally known to me. To say his reaction to when I approched him was apalling is an understatement.
Below is the e-mail I sent as soon as I got my license


I have just got my license for the Lunga Luswishi area. I dont want my dates to clash with any of your clients please let me know if the period between the 16th of october upto the 25th of october is fine with you. Also please advise if there is any particular place you would like us to camp.
Regards

Despite this gesture I was bombarded by his staff trying to persuade me to cancel my hunts. Like trying to tell me that the road was impassable, the area had no game. I wanted to book a camp instead of lugging all my goods and staff. The owner of the camp told me point blank that he was not willing to book out the camp to me for fear of upseting the operator.
Unknown to all these people I know the area like the back of my hand as I had lived in that area for four years while I was working for a mining company and this was an area that we had prospected ten years ago.So I said to myself f____k them I will hunt this area even if it meant hiring helicopters to get there. In fact I had already made arrangements with the air force to ferry me there if need be.
Anyways despite all the aggro we went ahead with our plans I sent one of our drivers on a recce trip and to my surprise he got back the same day, Surprise surprise he had actually got to the area, selected a camp site and managed to return his report the road was perfect and we would have no hassle getting there.Game was abundant.
So as planned we left on the 16th and four hours later we were at the camp site.
Day one

My supply truck



The Crew



These are some pictures of camp etc. I hope I have remembered how to put up pictures.I am going to give it a trial run and will post more about the hunt.

I see I can stll post pictures (Thank You Mr Carr)



A brief on the area is close to impossible but I will try to put it into words in case I cannot express my self i will let you make up your mind by posting pictures.



We had just had a week of rain so the bush was nice and green.

On the first day as I left the guys setting up camp I decided to take a wander around the area, Just behind our campsite there was a plain that started so i kept to the tree line and kept my route parallel to the river I had been walking for about 30 minutes when I saw a herd of young bachelor Impalas grazing peacefully and thankfully the wind was blowing strongly in my face. I normally buy an Impala on every hunt to keep my staff in meat during my trip.

The plains in this area are dotted with anthills which made stalking the herd easy,although the ant hills are not as tall as I have seen elsewhere so one does need to get close to mother earth. after another 20 minutes or so, I did manage to get to one of the anthills as I peeped over the anthill I saw that the herd were now grazing towards me so I decided to stay put and wait for them to get closer.

As I sat there one thought that that went through my mind was that this was about the closest I would ever get to a hunt that was similar to the stand hunting that we watch every Saturday on ESPN. OK I admit my stand was not of the standard that one might have in the states but then I was hunting in Africa.

No cushions etc for my poor behind just the ground and what nature decided to endow me with.

By this time the herd were within range and I must say the shot was very easy with the anthill as a steady rest.

I chose a young ram and he dropped at the first shot, the rest of the rams barked and took off, as we walked up to the fallen ram the game guard caught up with me as I had left him behind when I started the stalk.

As we were just checking the place out we had not taken any bearers with us so he decided to walk back to camp to get some help.

While I waited for him to come back I walked to a tree and sat under it.The silence and peace in the bush is overwhelming I just sat there and to be honest I cannot remember any of my thoughts I guess you could liken it to a bush blackout.

Anyways a very uneventful recovery back to camp and on my return I decided that I would call it a day and devote the rest of the day to some well deserved rest. Off course my son had other ideas so after lunch I had to escort him to try some fishing on the Kafue.





Here he is with a decent fish that he caught on a lure,I think he has made up his mind that fishing with lures is the way to go guess what was for dinner? Yep fish and chips!

Some more pics of camplife





My bedroom/living room and dining room discussing the next days plan with the game guard





Dinner time

Zambian,

Very cool! I look forward to reading/seeing more of your hunt!

Erik D.

My bush office I am sure if some kind soul employed me to do this job I would never retire



On discussing with the game guard I found out from him that there was a hot spring very near camp. So we decided that it would be a good idea to check it out.It was closer than I thought as in the bush when the guys talk about distance their perception of near and far differ from what us town dwellers take to be near or far.

It was an easy five minute drive from our camp, Personally I was delighted as I cannot enjoy a cold bath.



The spring actually bubbled from the top of a small hill and then ran into a small stream and then eventually flowed into the Kafue. The water was so hot at the source that one could not put your hand in for long,So we just walked the stream until we found a place that was just right. The water did get cooler the further it got from the hill also the sulphur smell disappeared. I guess the soil leached most of the smell.

We actually collected some flat stones from the river bank and made an open air bathroom.

This became a daily ritual we would drive to the springs for a bath every day.

I am sure the staff were glad that one of their chores was taken care of naturally.



We started off early in the morning to check on Hartebeest in the numerous plains that are in this area,Despite seeing a variety of game that particular day we did not see any harteebeest or cut any spoor, So after having a brilliant lunch under a tree we decided to head back to camp as it was nearly mid day and being our summer the heat was amazing.

while we were about to leave a tree line and cross a plain I saw a Puku that was sitting down on the ground, at first glance I could tell that he was very big in the body, primarily being a meat hunt I decided to try and take him. So we crept back into the tree line and then walked parallel to the Puku, after a brief walk we headed back to the plain and as I peeped over a small rise I saw that the Puku had stood up and was staring in my direction.

Maybe my stalk was not as quiet as I thought and he had heard me although he was not too sure on what we were he was definately alert now so I slowly brought my rifle up and got him into the cross hairs. He dropped on the spot once I fired so we walked upto where he had fallen.

On checking the entry hole I saw that my shot had gone high and hit him in the neck that is why he dropped immediately.

I had been aiming for the "V" of his neck but the shot had hit him in the centre of his neck, I made a mental note to recheck my scope once we got back to camp.

Fortunately the Puku was alert and looking at me with his head raised or I reckon I would have had a jaw shot animal on my hands.



I am adding another picture here and to just brief you the chap on the left is Miti who we call Madala which means old man. Those of you that read my last hunt report will remeber that Madala has been with me since I was a child and I am glad to say that he is still hunting with me and my son. Although this past year he has slowed down considerably.The chap on the right and the previous picture is Loyd. He is basically the team leader in the bush he makes sure all the staff know their role and also does the recriting of any local staff we take on. Dont be fooled by his small stature he can get vicious when need be.

If you look carefully at the Puku you will see that he had one horn tip pointing foward and the othr tip going in the opposite direction also you should be able to see the small anthills I mentioned earlier.

Stay tuned for more on warthog/hartebeest and bush buck.here is a teaser



PS Thanks Terry for editing and correcting the first post

Zambian,



Thanks for the report and pictures. It's nice to see that you were able to go hunting with your son again.



I just corrected a bad URL for that last picture in your previous post.



Regards,



Terry



P.S.

Here's link to a map showing the hunting areas in Zambia. Lunga Luswishi is Number 31 on the map Map of Zambian hunting Concessions.

Now THAT is a warthog...puku looks damn good too! Thanks for the great report so far.
BTW does it take a lot of paperwork/hassle to get resident licences? Do you know roughly how many resident hunters there are?

Zambian

This is really great stuff! Please keep it comming.

Jason

Sure looks like fun. Looking forward to more! For a meat hunt you've collected some nice trophies as well.

Very interesting report, the detail is great. Keep up the good work.

CFA

Thank You all for the encouraging posts. Please bear with me on the follow up work load is huge at the moment will post ASAP.